Sid’s gotten pretty used to total strangers asking him what he’s trying to prove, or telling him he wasn’t raised right, and they always expect it to bother him. He doesn’t tell them he hears much, much worse on the ice. When shit gets even worse than usual—when a ref calls him a brat when he’s arguing a call, when another team’s goon tries to put him on his knees five times a game—he sits on the bench and presses down on his chest protector, feeling the shape of the captain’s ring on its chain around his neck, until he doesn’t feel like throwing up anymore. Sid’s never had a dom, not even for a night, but he has his team, and that’s enough. That’s more than enough.

Of course Tyler knows that intense hockey makes a sub more susceptible to going under, but he hadn't really experienced it much before. Now, when he’s on his knees on the ice drinking beer out of the Worlds trophy that Sidney Fucking Crosby is holding to his mouth, he can recognize the signs. He can feel a haze settling around the edges of his mind, and he’s spent enough time subbing, and drunk, and subbing while drunk, to know which one of those this is.

The Washington Capitals part of the D/s AU.

Every guy in the NHL lived hungry during the season, and they were all running on empty now.

Nate looks away, shifting his weight between his feet. “Uh, it’s a contract,” he says. EJ stares at him for a moment. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” he blurts out once he’s done staring because that’s the only reasonable explanation for this. Nate looks up at him, confused and weirded out at the same time. “I’m not,” he says. “It’s for you,” he adds. In which the NHL requires subs over the age of 31 to be collared, and EJ finds himself in a tough spot.